The present invention relates generally to relational databases, and more specifically to relational databases that perform aggregation during run-time operations.
A database is a collection of information organized in such a way that a computer program can quickly select desired pieces of data. It may be organized by fields, records, and files or through use of linking such as hypertext. In some embodiments, to access information from a database, a database management system (DBMS) is also used, which may include a collection of programs for organizing and storing data.
Many database tables are organized in a matrix type structure, that is, made of rows and columns. The intersection of a row with a column is defined as a cell that holds data. In many relational databases, a hash table is used. A hash table is a data structure used to implement an associative array which often can map keys to values. A hash table uses a hash function to compute an index into an array of buckets from which the correct value can be found. Ideally a hash function assigns each possible key to each bucket.
Management of today's relational databases, especially those that use hash tables, is complex. One reason is because data retrieval is performed by initiating a function that most often results in a query operation being performed. Therefore the ability to handle a large quantity of query operations at one time in a time efficient manner is necessary. Unfortunately, designing data management systems can be challenging because, while storage and operational footprint remains limited or is being actively reduced, the size of the databases keep growing. Under such conditions, performing runtime operations on these large databases with limited resources either requires additional cost or is time prohibitive.